Last night, my volleyball team played in the final playoff tournament of the year. The playoffs are designed as a bracket tournament, with three brackets to reach the Glory Land. Each match was three games, best out of three.

The first game, we beat the competition in two quick games. Bam! Bam! Then we had an hour break before we played the number one team, our arch nemesis, Beach Ya To The Bar. Ewww, we hate them! In fact, our entire league hates them! They have cheers for themselves, and they bring obnoxious clapper noisemakers to the playoffs, and they tend to win the playoffs. It's not that they are so good, it just that they don't often make mistakes. Any team who has better skills can beat them...so long as they don't beat themselves by doing stupid things like hitting the ball out. We have been such a team. But not last night!

Last night, we beat BYTTB the first game, and let me tell you how great it was to watch those smug looks slide off their faces! We even had a cheering section this season. And boy were we loud! They usually make quite a racket, so we decided we needed to beat them at their own game. At the start of the second game, we were ahead 8-0...an amazing lead. But then we lost it. I have no idea how we did that but we did. And we lost the game.

Our spirits dampened but not extinguished, we re-amped out our cheering section, and added fans to our side of the court to cheer us on (other teams in our league who were also happy to see BYTTB lose) and off we went. We kept a steady lead and won 15-11. We were elated! We were exceptionally loud, and energetic. Something that may come to be our downfall later. But this was the game we came to play. We beat the team we wanted to be. It was a momentous occasion. And I have to say, while we were on that court, listening to the crowd cheer us on, yelling ourselves, playing with all our hearts, we weren't playing a beer league game of volleyball. No, we were playing in the greatest championship of all time.

But then we had to play the championship game. We were playing the second best team in the league for the title--and the t-shirts. They are another semi-decent team, who certainly can be beat. But an hour of keeping our adrenaline and spirits high had dampened our energy. We were simply tired. And that adrenaline crash from playing the tough game first inhibited our play. We did our best, but in the end, the other team simply hadn't spent an hour exhausting themselves like we had. We lost one, won one, and lost the third.

But the real victory was definitely the game against BYTTB. It was a victory for the whole league. And I have never been prouder of my team. We may have lost our on the t-shirts, but we can forever say we beat the unbeatable team!